Mutatosque Deos Flebit.

Must the Past with its joys mingle care? Must the Present bear fruit from the Past?
O Goddess thy face is not fair, and down from thy throne thou art cast.
O'er the days is the Sceptre of Sorrow, thy kingdom a kingdom of tears,
And Grief holding sway o'er the morrow has banished all bliss from the years.
When thy lips were as wine, and as sweet as the scent where the roses blow,
And thy cheeks as the skies that greet the morn with a crimsoned glow,
Forgotten were griefs for the season; soft laughter and lips that were red.
Had banished from earth bitter reason's regret for the years that are dead.

O Queen of the waves Cytherean. O Goddess of ages past,
Foam-born of the flashing Aegean. Thy kingdom has fallen at last:
And the face of the earth is forlorn as the face of a desert, and bare.
The day has died in the morn, and thy night is a night of despair.
Thy words are bitter, and sting like the salt of the wet sea-spray,
For thou givest thy counsel and sing that thy pleasures are not for a day.
"Seize ye the joys of the present." But the joys of the present are past,
And the days are dark and unpleasant; and their shade o'er the future is cast,
page 38 For the unborn regrets of to-morrows shall yet bring their grief and their tears,
And join in the flood-tide of sorrows that flows down the river of years.

—Piri Kerei